Текст книги "Blind Rage"

Автор книги: Terri Persons

Соавторы: Terri Persons
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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 21 страниц)

Chapter 36

THE KILLER IS moving down a dark, narrow space. A hallway. Pictures line both walls, but Bernadette’s sight doesn’t allow her to make out their details. They’re smears of color corralled inside a series of tall rectangles. They could be priceless works of art or framed beer posters.

He enters a bedroom and walks through it so quickly, she hardly has time to take it in. Is it the bedroom she visited during her first round with the scarf? She can’t tell. He comes up to a door and inserts a key in the lock. He turns the knob and pushes the door open. Closes it behind him.

White walls. White floor. White ceiling. A glass shower door. A toilet and a pedestal sink. It’s a bathroom. Why would he keep a bathroom locked? There’s a mirror over the sink, and Bernadette wills the killer to step in front of it. He doesn’t, of course.

He goes down beside the tub, and Bernadette’s heart sinks. Water doesn’t mix well with this guy. It’s an old claw-foot like her own; she’d recognize the sleighlike shape anywhere. Someone is reclining against the tub’s sloped back. Long brown hair. Small oval face. The bather is a woman. She’s motionless. Is she dead? Did he get another one while Bernadette was changing clothes and Garcia was eating a salami sandwich?

The bather sits up and raises her hands out of the water. He’s got her tied. The bastard has a girl locked in the bathroom, tied in the tub. Bernadette braces herself, waiting to witness a drowning. Instead, she sees the killer’s hands reaching for his prisoner’s. Something flashes, a glint of steel. A knife? Is he slashing them now before he submerges them? Why isn’t the woman fighting back? Has he drugged her?

He’s cutting her binds, hacking at them. The prisoner helps, unraveling whatever is wrapped around her wrists. The stuff is gray. Must be duct tape, endorsed by homicidal maniacs everywhere.

She rubs her wrists while he watches and then points across the room, to the toilet. He hesitates, standing frozen with the blade in his hand. Then the girl leans back against the tub while he dips the knife in the water. He’s working at slicing something at her feet. More duct tape. She raises the leg closest to him, and he unravels her binds. Drops them on the floor. She sits forward and does the other leg, extracting more gray matter from the water and dropping it on the floor.

Grabbing the edge of the tub for support, she raises herself out of the water. Wobbling, she uses a hand to steady herself against the bathroom wall. The woman is grossly thin, her milky figure lost against the white wall. Either she’s one of the anorexic chicks this psycho favors or her captor has starved her to fit the part.

The psycho stands and offers her his free hand. She takes it and steps out of the tub. He turns to take a towel off a bar, lowering his knife hand as he does so. He spins back around.

Stick Woman is standing with the blade in her hand; she’s snatched it! Bernadette fears for this girl; she’s obviously too weak and slight to take this bastard. He doesn’t move while the girl backs away from him, inching toward the door. Still facing him, she puts her hand behind her, feeling for the knob. Is the door locked? No. She pulls the door open and slips through while still holding the knife in front of her. She’s gone. He starts after her. The door slams in his face. He throws it open and runs after his loose prey.

Bernadette sees the pale figure bounding through the bedroom and escaping out the door. Down the dark hall, bony arms and legs flapping madly. An animated Halloween skeleton. As she runs, she looks behind her. Big mistake. She stumbles into a hallway table, knocks it over, and nearly goes down. Rights herself and keeps going.

He’s on her heels. Reaching out, he snags her hair. Her head snaps back. She spins around with the blade in her hand. He halts and holds his palms up in a gesture of surrender, taking a step back from her.

She turns her back to him and starts down the stairs. He goes after her. It’s a long open staircase that takes a turn at a landing. The woman makes it to the landing but stumbles into a potted plant. Falls to her knees. The knife. What happened to the knife?

He’s standing over her now. As she’s scrambling to her feet, he plants his shoe on her lower back. She pitches forward and tumbles down the steps. Landing at the bottom with arms and legs splayed, she resembles a splatter of white paint against the wooden floor.

Bastard is taking his time coming after her. She must be so badly hurt, he’s confident she can’t run off. As he makes his way down the stairs, he looks past the pale, prone figure. What he sees sickens Bernadette: his captive has almost made it to the door.

He comes up next to Stick Woman and pokes her in the hip with the tip of his shoe. She stirs. Good. She’s alive.

Slowly, she gathers her arms and legs under her and crawls to her feet. She looks him in the face. Her mouth is red, and it isn’t lipstick. As she stands before him, she starts to totter and stagger backward. He steps toward her, catches her by the shoulder. Holding her up with one hand, he cranks back the other and punches her in the stomach. As she folds, he knees her in the face. She flips onto her back and curls into a tight, white ball. He kicks her again and reaches for something on the floor.

The knife.

______

BERNADETTE INHALED sharply and instinctively opened her hand, dropping the scarf and inadvertently severing the connection. She retrieved the fabric and closed her fist around it again. “Return to me, return to me.”

Garcia hovered over her, saying nothing.

“I lost it.” She bunched the scarf in her hand and hurled it down.

“What did you see?”

The murderer’s emotions were rising inside Bernadette, and this time no passion tempered the anger. It took every ounce of self-control for her to swallow back the rage and answer Garcia civilly. “He’s got another victim. I saw him running her down.”

“What do you mean?”

“She was tied up and sitting in a tub. He cut her loose, and she bolted. He caught up with her and shoved her down the stairs.”

“Christ.”

“As if that wasn’t enough, he’s beating her. This skinny, naked chick. He’s punching the crap out of her.” Holding out her hand, she saw that she was trembling—either from the shock of what she’d witnessed or the extreme effort it was taking to rein in her emotions.

“Is she dead?”

“I don’t know. If she isn’t now, she soon will be. We have to find her.”

“Is this happening right now, or did it happen earlier?”

“I think it’s now.” She checked her watch. “I get the sense this is real time.”

“What did she look like? Can you give any kind of description?”

He knew her sight was usually too foggy for details. “She was white. Skinny as a bird. Long brown hair. The prof didn’t give me a description of this Regina Ordstruman, but it’s gotta be her.”

“So Wakefielder wasn’t lying.”

She picked up the evidence bag and dropped the scarf back inside it. She extended her hand to him. “We gotta move on this thing.”

______

BY THE TIME they got back to her loft, the killer’s anger had dissipated, but Bernadette remained dizzy. She went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face. “Let’s go over to the house!” she yelled through the open door.

“Which one? Was he chasing her around a houseboat or a mansion?”

She thought about it and ruled out the houseboat; it didn’t have a second floor. Also, Matthew’s girlfriend would have seen it if her boy was holding another woman. “Let’s go to the doctor’s place,” Bernadette said, blotting her face with a towel. “We can look for blood.”

Garcia came up behind her and stood in the bathroom doorway. “Blood? The beating was that bad?”

“That bad.” She wobbled past him and headed to the kitchen.

“You look like hell,” he said, following her.

She took her jean jacket off the back of a chair and slipped it on. “Let’s get going.”

He put on his trench. “Should we call for backup?”

She checked her Glock. “When we’re sure we have the right house.”

“Is he alone?”

She pulled on her gloves. “I didn’t see anyone except the victim.”

“Is he armed?”

She started for the door. “Didn’t see a gun. He had a knife.”

Garcia was right behind her. “He was getting ready to cut her?”

“Yeah,” she said, and pulled the door open.

THEY TOOK Garcia’s car. She knew the Grand Am was up for the race; Garcia had won the loaded heap at a police auction. It was tempting to give him grief about not taking a company car, but by the glow of the dashboard she could see his face was tense. He was in no mood for giving or receiving any crap as he piloted the Pontiac through downtown.

“What if he won’t let us in?” she asked. “We really don’t have enough to—”

“He’ll let us in.” With a squeal, he steered around a slow-moving sedan.

“What leverage have we got?”

He turned onto Interstate 94 heading west. “The sister. What was her name again?”

“Ruth.”

“I’ll tell him we’re opening an investigation into her death. If what you said is true, that isn’t a line of bullshit. You can chime in with tidbits you picked up at the nursing home. Make it sound like we know what we’re talking about.”

She eyed the speedometer and was impressed. The sled had wings. “He could refer us to his lawyers and slam the door in our faces.”

“Or he’ll be so upset at the mere mention of the dead sister, he’ll soil his trousers and let us inside.” He slowed behind a taxi and swerved around it.

“You’re being optimistic,” she said.

“If by some miracle we get through the front door, where was most of the action taking place?”

“It started in an upstairs bathroom and ended on the first floor, at the bottom of the stairs. I couldn’t tell if they were Luke VonHader’s stairs, though. There was a landing at the killer’s house. I don’t remember if there was one at the doc’s. The wood was the same. Dark banisters and floor.” She balled her fists in her lap and glanced out the passenger’s window. “I wish my sight could be more precise.”

“Me, too,” he said shortly.

The drove in silence after that, until he muscled the Grand Am onto the exit ramp. “Reach under your seat,” he told her.

She bent over and retrieved a flashlight. “What do we need this for?”

“We’ll scope out the place before we knock,” he said, turning left and heading south toward Summit Avenue. “We might see something that would justify busting down the door.”

She clicked the flashlight on and off and dropped it into her jacket pocket. “Like a body in the foyer?”

“A body in the foyer would do it.”

Chapter 37

AS THEY ENTERED the doctor’s property through the back gate, they saw that the windows at the rear of the house were dark. Crouching down and hugging the side of the building, the two agents circled the stone mansion once and returned to the backyard. The entire place appeared devoid of light and movement.

Pulling the flashlight out of her jacket pocket, she went over to the garage—an old carriage house—and shined the beam through one of the windows. The light bounced off a sea of silver surfaces. Lexus. Volvo. Jag. “That’s interesting,” she muttered.

“What?” whispered Garcia, standing behind her and sharing her view through the window.

“The sedan and the wagon belong to Luke.”

“So he’s home.”

Training the beam on the sports car, she said, “But that silver bullet is Little Brother’s ride.”

“They’re both here.”

She clicked off the light and looked over her shoulder at Garcia. “Which means if there’s a body in the foyer, they’re both culpable.”

While the carriage house had no outside lighting, the neighbors on both sides had bright lights mounted on their garages, making it easy to read the concern on Garcia’s face. “Time to call for backup,” he said, slipping his hand inside his trench coat.

“Not yet. Let’s keep looking around.”

He paused. “Fine.”

Reaching inside her jacket, she unsnapped her holster and took out her Glock. “You stay here in case they try to slip out the back.”

Nodding in agreement, he took out his weapon.

She left Garcia in the backyard and went around to the side of the house. Bernadette ran her eyes up and down the sidewalk and street that ran past the front of the house. There were a few parked vehicles on both sides of the street, but no traffic from cars or pedestrians. It was a quiet residential neighborhood that wouldn’t see any action until dawn. That was good. She had a feeling this saga wasn’t going to have a tidy ending.

She entered the front yard and squatted behind one of the marble lions. Looking up, she noticed a light in a second-story window over the porch. Had they missed it? Didn’t matter. Someone was up and about. Bernadette wanted to confront whoever it was before Garcia called the cavalry. As she was contemplating her next move, her cell vibrated. She fished it out. “What?” she whispered.

Garcia said, “I see a light upstairs.”

“Me, too.”

“Now what?”

A light downstairs flicked on.

After a long silence on his end, Garcia said, “Someone’s in the kitchen. I can see their silhouette through the curtains. I think it’s a guy. Big guy.”

She hoped they stayed there for a while. “I’m going onto the front porch. Call if the kitchen light goes off or you see him leave the room.”

“Careful.”

“Right,” she said, readjusting her grip on her gun. She closed the phone and dropped it into her pocket. Leaving the lions, she tiptoed up the front steps and put her hand on the porch door. It was unlocked. She went inside, closing the door carefully. She eyed the statues crowding the floor space. The collection of stone figures reminded her of a New Orleans cemetery, with its aboveground tombs. “Cities of the Dead,” the graveyards were called. The VonHaders had a Porch of the Dead. She paid no mind to the camera, confident the thing was as dead as during her previous visit.

She went over to the windows and peeked inside. There was a fire going in the fireplace. A man in a robe was bending down in front of the blaze; Bernadette couldn’t make out his face. She went back to the door and tried to peer inside through the small window but couldn’t see a thing. She put her gun in her jacket and raised her fist to knock. The porch light flicked on; the security camera had been working after all.

Bernadette felt her phone vibrate again. She quickly took it out, flipped it open, shut it off, and dropped it back in her pocket. Hands folded demurely in front of her, she stood before the door waiting for someone to appear. Behind her, the screen door creaked open. She spun around and saw Garcia. His eyes went to the porch light above her head, then to the security camera mounted on the wall. Taking his cue from her, he pocketed his gun and stood next to her, facing the door.

They heard a deadbolt crack and then the door opened.

Standing shoulder to shoulder were the two brothers, the younger one dressed in a bathrobe. His hair was damp, and he had a glass of whiskey in his hand. His eyes were bloodshot. “We need to talk,” she said to the pair.

“This was a long time coming,” said the older man. He stepped back and opened the door wider for the two agents.

Garcia extended his hand to the doctor, who was dressed in khakis and a sweater but had slippers on his feet. “Assistant Special Agent in Charge Anthony Garcia.”

Luke VonHader gave Garcia a firm handshake and turned around. “Let’s take this into the kitchen.”

While Garcia and the brothers went ahead, Bernadette stalled to scrutinize the foyer and the base of the stairs. The wooden floors were spotless, with no signs of blood. She eyed the staircase leading to the second floor. It was long, wide, and ornate, with carved spindles and a glossy banister. It was similar to what she’d observed with her sight, but the doctor’s staircase seemed to have no landing. She needed to be sure. “May I use the restroom?” she asked as she trailed behind the three men.

Matthew set his glass on a foyer table. “Go on ahead, gentlemen. I’ll show the lady to the facilities.”

Garcia and Luke disappeared into the back of the house. Being separated from her boss gave Bernadette a twinge of discomfort. The doctor was taller than both his drunken sibling and Garcia, and he was stone sober. She reassured herself that Garcia was more muscular than either man and carried a big gun.

Matthew headed for the stairs. “This way, Agent Scully.”

She gave one last glance to the lighted room in back of the house and followed the tipsy smartass up the steps. “If you point me in the right direction, I’m sure I can find it all by my lonesome,” she said to his back.

Without turning around, he responded, “That would leave you free to snoop around, wouldn’t it?”

“Exactly,” she said as she scouted the steps for blood.

He hiccupped a laugh. “At least you’re being honest this time.”

She took notice of the artwork lining the staircase wall. The signature on the rendition of a dusty cowboy ranch looked familiar. “Is that an authentic Remington?”

“Frederic Remington, James Edward Buttersworth, George Henry Durrie,” he said, waving his arm. He could have been ticking off the cereal selection in his kitchen cupboard.

Though Bernadette had snoozed through most of college art history, she recognized those names as important American painters. “Your brother is quite a collector.”

“My parents were the collectors,” he said as they reached the second-floor hallway. “My brother and I are stuck being the curators.”

She remembered that Luke had had a similar complaint. “Most people would kill to inherit such treasures,” she said.

“In a sense, we did,” he said ominously.

Her eyes widened. “Is there something you want to tell me?”

More art hung from the hallway walls, and he ignored her question to point out the pieces. “Here we have a hand-signed print by Marc Chagall. That’s hand-colored lithography by Currier and Ives. Those are all numbered and signed artist proofs by Norman Rockwell. A little too Main Street for my palate, but Mother and Father liked that sort of thing. They were all about the wholesome American family.”

His voice carried a bitterness that alarmed her. “Matt, maybe we could talk. Just the two of us.”

He stopped in front of a door in the middle of the hall and pushed it open. “I’ll leave you to whatever it is you want to do up here. Wash your hands. Powder your nose. Dust for prints. I’ll be downstairs with the menfolk.”

She watched him head down the hall, his shoulders sagging, his gait unsteady. She found him more pathetic than menacing.

Scanning the second floor, she saw it wasn’t anything like what she’d observed through her sight. The entire upstairs was ringed by railing, allowing all the rooms to look down onto the first floor. The corridor traveled by the killer had solid walls on both sides.

She walked into the hallway bathroom. She knew it wouldn’t be the one she’d observed. For starters, the bathroom from which the young woman had fled had emptied into a bedroom, not a hall. Instead of a claw-foot tub, the doctor had a modern Jacuzzi. Instead of white walls, Luke VonHader had ornate wallpaper hung with framed art. She scanned the bottom of the tub, but found nothing more suspicious than a collection of children’s toys: headless Barbie dolls, beach buckets, sand shovels, rubber ducks. The surface of the tub looked bone dry. She went over to a stall with a glass door—the only feature even remotely similar to what she’d conjured through her sight—and popped it open. The floor was wet. Not a surprise. The robed Matthew had probably just used the shower. Was there a chance he’d been washing off blood? She studied the tiles on the floor and the grout between them and found no stains.

Bernadette opened the medicine cabinet and surveyed the contents. Tylenol and sinus tablets and bars of soap and shaving cream and a disposable razor. A few of the wife’s cosmetics and perfumes. She took down the sole prescription bottle: amoxicillin, for the girls’ ear infections. She put the bottle back and closed the cabinet, another fixture that wasn’t in the killer’s bathroom. He’d had only an oval mirror over the sink. Encased in dry cleaner’s plastic, a set of the doctor’s shirts hung from the back of the bathroom door. This was a messy family bathroom, not a murder site.

She quickly made the circuit around the second floor, poking her head inside one bedroom after another. None of them matched the sparsely furnished one Bernadette had seen during her first round with the scarf. The sleeping quarters were filled with dressers and nightstands and blanket chests. Armoires and tallboys and lowboys and vanities. Perched atop the tables and chests and dressers were vases and statues and linens and quilts.

The only things distinguishing the little girls’ room from the other antique parlors were the mermaid spreads on the matching twin beds. Shuddering, she tried to imagine a childhood spent suffocating in this sea of old stuff. It all felt like a heavy weight pressing down on her, and she was only a visitor. She was starting to understand the brothers’ resentment toward their parents.

The largest bedroom—it had to be the master—was the most jammed of all. Two veneered chests stood next to each other. A dark old armchair was parked in front of a cherrywood dressing table. On each side of the bed was a marble-topped nightstand. Nearly every inch of wall space was plastered with framed art. Taking up the center of one wall was a massive fireplace, its mantel crowded with old oil lanterns like the fireplace mantel downstairs.

Poking her head inside the master bathroom, she spotted another Jacuzzi tub, plus a marble-topped vanity with two modern sinks. Satisfied that the doctor’s home wasn’t the killing ground, Bernadette started for the stairs, wondering how much she’d gotten wrong over the past week. But a woman had been kidnapped, and they had to find her.

When she walked into the kitchen, she saw Luke and Matthew VonHader seated on the same side of the table. The brothers were in handcuffs. Her boss stood across from them, holding his gun on the pair.

“Call the police, Agent Saint Clare,” said Garcia.

“Yes, sir.” Bernadette retrieved her cell with one hand and took her gun out of her pocket with the other.

While she punched the numbers on her phone, Bernadette’s eyes went from one brother to the other. The expressions on their faces were calm, almost relieved. While she spoke into the cell, the room was silent. She noticed it was a small but bright kitchen, so unlike the rest of the house.

When she was finished with the dispatcher, she closed the phone and asked the question she’d been asking herself from the minute she stepped inside. “Where’s the body?”

“In the ground,” Garcia said grimly.

“So they killed—”

“Their father,” said Garcia.